More News for MSNBC

MSNBC has picked up Newsvine
in an attempt to make its news pages more interactive. Newsvine encourages readers
to respond, post their views and tell their stories from their perspective,
a so-called "social news" source. Viewers can post their own articles,
comment on existing articles, add links to other sites that relate to posted
content and so on.

MSNBC Interactive News just announced the Newsvine acquisition, the first ever
for MSNBC. It intends to maintain Newsvine as a separate brand, but will share
content and certain features with the MSNBC site.

It's not simply the extra clicks that MSNBC wants (currently, Newsvine draws
about 1 million users per month, compared to MSNBC's 29 million). Newsvine brings
the social networking aspect so popular in sites like Facebook. Competing news
sites already have an interactive component to one degree or another.

How do you feel about writing your own news? Ever find yourself yelling at
the TV screen or your computer when checking news sites on the Web? Would you
contribute your thoughts and stories to something like this? Contribute your
opinion to me at llow@redmondmag.com.